The Boxer Rebellion's European tour a knockout in Budapest

Euronews

For their first ever concert in Hungary, British-American indie band The Boxer Rebellion took to the stage onboard the famous A38 – a decommissioned Ukrainian stone hauler. The river barge has been transformed into one of Budapest’s coolest clubs.

The event was a sell-out, confirming the sound fan-base the band has built up since it was formed back in 2001. Euronews got to speak to lead singer Nathan Nicholson backstage.

“It was unexpected because we didn’t expect so many people to have bought tickets and stuff like that, usually when we turn up to a place where we have never played before I am always surprised when there are more than 10 people,” he said.

Based in London, the band is made up of Nicholson, Piers Hewitt on the drums, bass guitarist Adam Harrison and lead guitarist Andrew Smith, who recently joined after the departure of Todd Howe. Nicholson says they are more than just a band: “It is very much like a family, it’s not like a job where you can go to work everyday and not really be friends and hang out afterwards, we always hang out even when we are not doing the band’s stuff.”

The Boxer Rebellion emerged at the tail end of the Oasis and Radiohead-dominated era of British music as part of a scene of new British bands. They are currently working on their fifth studio album due out next year.

“We just kind of try to make music that we enjoy listening to and that excites us and that we want to continue playing live, because you always got to keep in mind that once this is released, we’ve got to continue playing it for a while and we want to be interested in it,” said Nicholson.